Questioner: If Shiva created a world built on killing, why call Shiva compassionate?

Questioner: If Shiva created a world built on killing, why call Shiva compassionate?

So from what I have read, people often say that you are Shiva, everyone is Shiva, and Shiva is the one and only reality. So we are ultimately Shiva, we just have not realized it yet.

And whenever someone brings up pain and suffering, I often see people respond with things like, “Who is actually suffering?” and other such mumbo jumbo.

So basically, I am Shiva, even if I do not recognize it right now. If that is the case, then if I (Shiva) kill another person (who is also Shiva), is that okay? Would murder be allowed?

After all, I am ultimately only killing myself, right? And I am Svatantrya, am I not?

Sure, there might be other Shivas investigating the death of the Shiva that I killed. But let us say I do what I do with extreme care and never get caught. Then what?

Why would there be bad karma, or any karmic consequence at all, for an act that I essentially did to myself? And if you say karma is not bad, blah blah blah, then why would killing be wrong?

In case you are wondering why I asked this question: I just saw some dogs killing a pig, and it made me wonder, why would the God I pray to create a food chain where one being kills another for food? And what kind of fetish does this God have that he made insects which I unknowingly step on and kill even when I do not want to?

Such a God has to be evil and not kind, no matter how good that God’s PR is.

You are looking for the bottom of this, and from the absolute non-dual perspective, you aren’t wrong in your underlying premise. Shakti is both the mouse and the hawk. She is the very flesh that is consumed, and she is the consumer. She is the chaotic, visceral burst of ISness unfolding in every single moment, completely unbound by our human ideas of what is “nice” or “fair.” We have fallen so far from the raw rhythms of the natural world that we no longer have a deep connection with that ISness – so we judge it.

Your disgust at the suffering, your rage at the cruelty, your desperate questioning of “Why pain? Why struggle?” – that is also Shiva and Shakti wrestling with their own expression through you. You are the Divine doing its own inner work. Shiva is the still, silent void of profound emptiness, but He is also the cosmic orgasm of everythingness experiencing itself at the exact same time. The compassion of Shiva isn’t a grandfather in the sky waving a wand to make the pain stop. The compassion is that Shiva is experiencing all of it, intimately, alongside you, as you. The very rage you feel to act against the suffering… that is His rage, and Her rage, moving through the vessel of your incarnation.

So, you ask: If I am Shiva, and they are Shiva, is killing them wrong? If there are no ultimate rules, why not just do it?

Because, my friend, you are missing the profound responsibility of your own freedom. Yes, the universe is an open canvas. Yes, you are the Light itself playing at casting shadows on the wall of your own being. But if your heart is breaking over the brutality of the world, why on earth would you choose to pick up a paintbrush and add more brutality to the canvas?

Choosing to kill or cause harm from a place of philosophical detachment isn’t liberation; it is the ultimate constriction. It is the ego wrapping itself in the clothing of non-duality to numb out its own pain. It is reacting to what you don’t want, rather than moving toward a version of the world that is in alignment with what you do want.

You are God, entrusted with the most precious thing in all of existence: Experience itself. You get to choose what song you sing into the void. If you see a world filled with terror, dissonance, and a brutal food chain, and it breaks your heart, then your Heartsong is calling you to bring a different note into the symphony.

You want to know where the compassion is? It’s in your hands. It’s in your chest. You are the body of God and the hands of God. If the world lacks justice, it is because you – as an expression of the Divine – have not yet woven enough justice into it. Not that ‘justice’ resonates with my own energies, retribution of any kind is just more violence at the end of the day, and I want to embody a path of integrity that moves toward the vision that inspires me without picking up the tools of pain and suffering that I don’t believe will make the world a more beautiful place…

Don’t let the pain of the world drag you into nihilism. Use that profound, uncomfortable emotion as a compass. Turn that explorer spirit inward. Be the very beauty that is inspiring to you. Be the Light that inspires others. Choose to act not out of a frantic reaction against the dark, but as a deliberate, aligned movement toward the True Self. Shiva taking responsibility for his own creation…